The current flurry of retrospectives on John F. Kennedy will build to a crescendo as next week’s 50th anniversary of his assassination draws near. And amid all these remembrances, there will inevitably be some historical revisionism (which is not necessarily a bad thing; solid revisionism helps clarify history).

Another inevitability is the argument over Kennedy’s place on the liberal-conservative spectrum.

On that score, David Greenberg , a contributing editor at The New Republic and professor of history and of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, SAYS Kennedy’s continued popularity owes largely to his liberalism.